According to Engadget, Google has in effect pushed back offerings from the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Asus, Acer and Lenovo while it tinkers with its own-branded netbook for the savvy developer community.

But customers who had put a Chrome OS netbook on their Christmas wish list look set to be disappointed this holiday season.

Google announced it was working on its own operating system in July 2009 and said at the time that "the first netbooks running Chrome OS would be available in the second half of 2010". ®